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Gillian Bowditch: Allow Gaelic to thrive without taxpayers’ cash

During one of Gaeldom's periodic revivals, we acquired a teach-yourself-Gaelic book. My sister, the resident polyglot, had a bash at it. She had mastered French, German and Latin, and would go on to get a first-class honours degree in ancient Hebrew, which involved her understanding a bit of Aramaic. Her PhD was in classical Greek.

I have a vague recollection of her taking Sanskrit at university, and she would later study Italian at night school.

The Gaelic, however, never got off the ground. It may have been the language to which she was culturally closest after English, but it was trickier to crack than the Enigma code.

Even for a lover of esoteric tongues, it was a lexicon too far.

Which is a great pity, as it is almost certainly a more lucrative language to have learnt than all the others put together. Such has been the level of subsidy